A new Field Poll shows Cruz Bustamante and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a statistical dead-heat in the race to replace Gray Davis, with Bustamante at 25 percent among likely voters and Arnold trailing with 22. The margin of error is plus or minus 5 points. Trailing the leaders were the other major Republicans in the race, with Tom McClintock at 9 percent, Bill Simon with 8, and Peter Ueberroth with 5. Arianna Huffington had 4 percent and Peter Camejo had 2.

Among the more interesting numbers deeper in the poll:

No/Yes strategy working: Voters opposed to the recall who have made a choice in the replacement election are overwhelmingly for Bustamante, who gets 54 percent of the vote to just 2 percent for Schwarzenegger. But voters in favor of the recall spread their support around, with Arnold in first at 36 percent, followed by McClintock (14), Simon (13), and Bustamante with 7 percent.

Arnold goes both ways: Schwarzenegger has the most cross-over appeal, getting the support of 9 percent of Democrats. McClintock and Simon get 2 percent each from the opposite party, while Bustamante gets 4 percent from Republicans.

No pleasing some people: Last year voters said they didn’t like either choice. This year they have 135 choices and don’t seem much happier. Of the major candidates, only Arnold and Ueberroth have positive images. Arnold is at 44-40 while Ueberroth is at 32-26. Cruz is even (40-40) and McClintock is at 28-32, and Simon is at 32-54. Those lovable lefties seems to be irritating a lot of folks with their sermons on SUVs and the like: Huffington is at 18-53, and Camejo at 6-23. The huge number with no opinion of Ueberroth (42 percent) suggests he might be able to gain on the leaders with an aggressive early campaign reminding voters of his experience as head of the successful 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Splitzoid: The multiple Republican candidates are hindering their party’s chances of taking the governor’s office. Arnold gets 36 percent of his party’s vote, while McClintock (19) and Simon (17) combine for the same amount. Another way of looking at it is that if either McClintock or Simon dropped out, the other might pull even with Arnold on the strength of their support from the party’s conservative voters.

Brown like me: Cruz and Arnold are essentially tied among non-Hispanic white voters, while Cruz holds a nearly two-to-one edge (42-22) among Latinos. But overall, Cruz is leading the three top Republicans by the relatively narrow margin of 42-31 among Latinos.

Accurate? This poll raised eyebrows because it didn’t show the big Arnold lead that was evident in several network polls taken in the past 10 days. Republicans take it as a matter of faith that the Field Poll is slanted toward Democrats. But in the past four races for governor, two primaries and two generals, Field has been spot-on. In this case, I expected it to be a two-man race between Arnold and Cruz, so I am not terribly surprised. But I also think the polling in this race is going to be very erratic because of the unprecedented format of the election and the increased uncertainty about who is going to vote.

UPDATE: I found Field's published record of accuracy on their website. The last race in which the winner was not the leader in Field's final pre-election survey was the 1982 race for governor, in which George Deukmejian defeated Tom Bradley. And generally their margins have been pretty close to the mark.